Posted on 01/07/2026 10:35:01 PM PST by nickcarraway
As unpredictable as United States President Donald Trump may sometimes be, the decision to strike Venezuela and seize its leader Nicolas Maduro on Saturday (Jan 3) was not taken on a whim.
It was clearly calculated to send a message about America’s power and interests – and its ability and willingness to mobilise one to advance the other. The question is whether it was the only message that everyone else received.
The writing was on the wall for Maduro: In his first term, Mr Trump had refused to recognise the legitimacy of the Maduro presidency. Since his return to the White House, Mr Trump authorised CIA operations in Venezuela, sank its vessels suspected of trafficking drugs into the US and seized oil tankers.
(Excerpt) Read more at channelnewsasia.com ...
Meh. The author gets some things right and others not so much. They fail to realize that the west & US have played more by the “international rules” more closely than has China or Russia. At some point, one may decide that those rules are irrelevant in the face of danger.
Venezuela has been engaged in asymmetric warfare against the US. That to me is the difference.
from the article
“If one compares the Western Hemisphere to the Asia-Pacific, one quickly recognises the stark difference in geopolitical realities.
Simply put, US dominance in the Western Hemisphere is unquestionable, and indeed, unchallenged. None of the big powers in Asia, whether Russia, China, India or Japan, can afford the luxury that the US enjoys in the Americas, because of their overlapping – and competing – core interests.”
The USA is the utter hegemon for the Americas. It has no challenger. This is like Rome in 100 BC in Italy.
“The US, it is argued, has provided a template and legal “justification” for others that might consider similar measures to remove disagreeable leaders from power. “
There was a breathless news piece on YouTube saying that now China might capture the Taiwanese leader. The problem is there’s no single point of failure in a republic like there is in an autocracy. Capture the Taiwanese president and the constitution provides for a seamless change in leadership and, for practical purposes, there’s no interruption of Taiwan’s government and no strategic advantage to China.
It’s like nobody who writes this stuff attended a civics class.
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